


From Stars to Dawn

by archangelsky



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/F, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2529170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archangelsky/pseuds/archangelsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mad with grief, people with shapeless faces and fading features will say afterwards. Then they will forget her and all that will be left of Ashara Dayne is a short sentence near the conclusion of a cruel, fantastical song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Stars to Dawn

_I love you,_ they whisper to each other at night with stars above. _I love you;_ they parrot the words spoken by older people, with older faces and older eyes, and pretend they are growing old and still say those words again and again. Their hands murmur to each other in the cool of the Water Gardens, bronze and gold and sandy white, the superior substitute of the jewels and metals Ashara and Elia will wear many years later. Elia, a year older, would tease her and put her to bed, whispering _little fool, go to sleep now, we will love each other in the morning too._

Too young to know the true meaning of what they say and what they pretend to feel but old enough to dream that they will live forever wrapped in the shade of the Gardens and the sands of Dorne;they dream of counting thousands of summers.

* * *

 

Instead of _I love you,_ Elia whispers, _I need you._ Elia is to be a  _queen_ someday, and Ashara is her beautiful lady-in-waiting, both dressed in suffocating velvets and Elia in the red and black of House Targaryen. Whenever Elia’s princely husband does not come, they play their age-old game of wishing on every star they saw through the windows on the ceiling.

 _We could climb the towers to touch the sky,_ Ashara tangles her fingers into Elia’s mass of thick black hair, curling down to her waist.

 _We could use the stars for doorways home,_ Elia murmurs before she slides her hand down between Ashara’s legs and rocks it back and forth.

 _We’ll go home again,_ Ashara promises.

 _You little fool, this is home now,_ Elia laughs and her tears disappear when Ashara thumbs them away. Their limbs tangle once again; she feels fingers and feet brushing against her skin and doesn’t know who they belong to. Ashara can’t feel herself drowning in Elia.

* * *

 

They embrace and Ashara feels Elia’s curious fingers stroking the slightly bulging contours of her belly that is already causing rumors, but Ashara will disappear to Starfall before they can spread too far.

 _We’ll see each other soon,_ Elia says. Ashara will never know if Elia was lying or not.

 _Yes,_ Ashara almost replies, _we’ll go home and we’ll stand at the top of Palestone Sword Tower and listen to the waves break on rocks below, feast upon the oranges at the Water Gardens, and we will never return here, not ever._

Ashara believes it. She refuses to stop believing in their unspoken lies until the news comes. The letter written by Jon Arryn’s apathetic hand flutters out of Ashara’s hands and all she can do is wonder whether or not Elia found the stars beautiful in her last moments.

* * *

 

 _Mad with grief,_ people with shapeless faces and fading features will say afterwards. Then they will forget her and all that will be left of Ashara Dayne is a short sentence near the conclusion of a cruel, fantastical song.

 _Mother of a dead child. Sister to a dead knight. Lover to a dead princess, most of all lover, lover before anything, lover after everything,_ Ashara says back to them.

_Go to sleep now, you little fool; you won’t feel anything._

The stars are fading when Ashara steps onto the ledge of the Palestone Sword Tower. The night gives away to soft oranges and gold weaving into pinks and lilacs to banish the darkness. The last stars disappear from the horizon and the waves crash far below.

Ashara smiles when her arms reach out her fingers grazing the rising sun, not knowing where she ends and the sky begins. Ashara never looks away as the wind sings in her ears like a hymn, like a promise.


End file.
